The Relationship between Stock Price and EPS: Evidence Based on Taiwan Panel Data

In this study, we use panel cointegration methods to investigate the relationship between stock prices and earnings-per-share (EPS). Furthermore, we consider whether stock prices respond to EPS under the different level of growth rate of operating revenue. The empirical result indicated that the cointegration relationship existed between stock prices and EPS in the long-run. Furthermore, we found that for the firm with a high level of growth rate, EPS has less power in explaining the stock prices however, for the firm with a low level of growth rate, EPS has a strong impact in stock prices.Earnings Response Coefficient (ERC)

The effects of a family non-universal Z-prime boson on B--->pipi decays

Motivated by the measured large branching ratio of $\bar{B}^{0}\to\pi^0\pi^0$ (the so-called "$\pi\pi$" puzzle), we investigate the effects of a family non-universal $Z^{\prime}$ model on the tree-dominated $B\to\pi\pi$ decays. We find that the $Z^{\prime}$ coupling parameter $\zeta_{d}^{LR}\sim0.05$ with a nontrivial new weak phase $\phi_d^L\sim-50^{\circ}$, which is relevant to the $Z^{\prime}$ contributions to the QCD penguin sector $\triangle C_5$, is needed to reconcile the observed discrepancy. Combined with the recent fitting results from $B\to\pi K$, $\pi K^{\ast}$ and $\rho K$ decays, the $Z^{\prime}$ parameter spaces are severely reduced but still not excluded entirely, implying that both the "$\pi\pi$" and "$\pi K$" puzzles could be accommodated simultaneously within such a family non-universal $Z^{\prime}$ model.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures. References and discussions added. To appear in IJMP

Incidence and recurrence of acute otitis media in Taiwan's pediatric population

OBJECTIVE: To report the incidence and recurrence of acute otitis media (AOM) in Taiwan's pediatric population. METHODS: Information from children (aged <= 12 years) with a diagnosis of AOM was retrieved from the 2006 National Healthcare Insurance claims database. We calculated the cumulative incidence rate and the incidence density rate of recurrent AOM within one year after the initial diagnosis in 2006. We used a multivariate logistic regression model to assess the predictors for recurrence of AOM. RESULTS: The annual incidence rate of AOM was estimated to be 64.5 cases per 1,000 children. The overall one-year cumulative incidence rate of recurrence was 33.1%, and the incidence density rate was 33.5 cases per 100 personyears, with the highest figure (41.2 cases per 100 person-years) noted for children aged 0-2 years. Recurrence was significantly associated with age, gender, place of treatment, and physician specialty. CONCLUSION: AOM remains a major threat to children's health in Taiwan. Male children and very young children require more aggressive preventive strategies to reduce the risk of recurrence

Two variants on T2DM susceptible gene HHEX are associated with CRC risk in a Chinese population

Increasing amounts of evidence has demonstrated that T2DM (Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus) patients have increased susceptibility to CRC (colorectal cancer). As HHEX is a recognized susceptibility gene in T2DM, this work was focused on two SNPs in HHEX, rs1111875 and rs7923837, to study their association with CRC. T2DM patients without CRC (T2DM-only, n=300), T2DM with CRC (T2DM/CRC, n=135), cancer-free controls (Control, n=570), and CRC without T2DM (CRC-only, n=642) cases were enrolled. DNA samples were extracted from the peripheral blood leukocytes of the patients and sequenced by direct sequencing. The χ(2) test was used to compare categorical data. We found that in T2DM patients, rs1111875 but not the rs7923837 in HHEX gene was associated with the occurrence of CRC (p= 0.006). for rs1111875, TC/CC patients had an increased risk of CRC (p=0.019, OR=1.592, 95%CI=1.046-2.423). Moreover, our results also indicated that the two variants of HEEX gene could be risk factors for CRC in general population, independent on T2DM (p< 0.001 for rs1111875, p=0.001 for rs7923837). For rs1111875, increased risk of CRC was observed in TC or TC/CC than CC individuals (p<0.001, OR= 1.780, 95%CI= 1.385-2.287; p<0.001, OR= 1.695, 95%CI= 1.335-2.152). For rs7923837, increased CRC risk was observed in AG, GG, and AG/GG than AA individuals (p< 0.001, OR= 1.520, 95%CI= 1.200-1.924; p=0.036, OR= 1.739, 95%CI= 0.989-3.058; p< 0.001, OR= 1.540, 95%CI= 1.225-1.936). This finding highlights the potentially functional alteration with HHEX rs1111875 and rs7923837 polymorphisms may increase CRC susceptibility. Risk effects and the functional impact of these polymorphisms need further validation

Constraints on the nonuniversal Z^\prime couplings from B\to\pi K, \pi K^{\ast} and \rho K Decays

Motivated by the large difference between the direct CP asymmetries $A_{CP}(B^-\to \pi^0 K^-)$ and $A_{CP}(\bar{B}^{0}\to \pi^{+} K^{-})$, we combine the up-to-date experimental information on $B\to\pi K$, $\pi K^{\ast}$ and $\rho K$ decays to pursue possible solutions with the nonuniversal $Z^{\prime}$ model. Detailed analyses of the relative impacts of different types of couplings are presented in four specific cases. Numerically, we find that the new coupling parameters, $\xi^{LL}$ and $\xi^{LR}$ with a common nontrivial new weak phase $\phi_L\sim-86^{\circ}$, which are relevant to the $Z^{\prime}$ contributions to the electroweak penguin sector $\triangle C_9$ and $\triangle C_7$, are crucial to the observed "$\pi K$ puzzle". Furthermore, they are found to be definitely unequal and opposite in sign. We also find that $A_{CP}(B^-\to \rho^0 K^-)$ can put a strong constraint on the new $Z^{\prime}$ couplings, which implies the $Z^{\prime}$ contributions to the coefficient of QCD penguins operator $O_3$ involving the parameter $\zeta^{LL}$ required.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures. References and a note adde

Low-cell-number, single-tube amplification (STA) of total RNA revealed transcriptome changes from pluripotency to endothelium

Table S1. Summary of the sequencing results. The alignments against the GRCh38 genome assembly (Aligned Reads) were counted for exon reads (exon) and transcript reads based on GENCODE v22. Intronic counts (intron) were defined by transcript counts minus exon ones. Nontranscript reads were used to obtain tRNA counts (tRNA) based on the tRNA database of GENCODE v22. Nontranscript and non-tRNA reads were used for counts on repetitive sequences (repeats) based on RepeatMasker. Those not belonging to any category were defined as unannotated reads (unannotated). The counting of exonic features was based on the “gene_type” attribute in GENCODE v22. The percentages of mature miRNA reads were defined by reads aligned exclusively to the mature “miRNA” feature divided by reads aligned to the “miRNA_primary_transcript” feature of miRBase v21. (DOCX 42 kb